Sunday Service 24th November

For God so loved he world

24/11/24

Call to worship

Hymn 567: Focus my eyes on you, O Lord

Time for all Gil

Hymn 530: One more step along the world I go 

Reading:  John 3: 11-21 John

Prayer

Hymn 906(MP): O Father of the fatherless

Sermon

Prayer

Hymn 835(MP): Great is the darkness

Benediction

Welcome to our meditation for 24th of November

This Sunday is the end of the church year. Next week we start advent which is the start of the Christian year. And on this last Sunday of the Christian year, we celebrate Christ the King. The one who has authority over us, what that means, what is the nature of that authority, because we all know there are good kings and bad kings, so what does that mean for us?

We will reflect on that after John give sus the reading an prayer for today.

Sermon

Today is the last week of the Christian year.

Next week starts Advent which is the start of a new liturgical year, which means nothing much except to a few ministers and even fewer church members that are into the liturgical year.

Traditionally it is celebrated as Christ the King Sunday;

where we reflect on the authority and rule of Christ in our lives.

And that got me thinking, because there are good kings and bad kings.

And often how we regard our kings is subjective, how they affect us.

Like Richard the Lion Heart; good king or bad king?

I was brought up in the 60’s with films like Ivanhoe and Robin Hood where Richard is always regarded as a good king, while his brother John is regarded as a bad king.

Historians however would point out that once he became king he only spent six months in England, the rest of the time he was on the third Crusade or captive of Leopold in Vienna or in his palaces in France...that maybe he looked at his rule in England as a revenue to pay for his armies rather than a responsibility to look after.

Because he died without a legitimate heir,.. when his brother John took over it was an unstable time and John really spent his time raising money to try to stabilise his rule.

Any king that puts up taxes is never going to be regarded as a good king.

So it may be that although Richard did nothing to help the people of England, because he was busy elsewhere doing what he wanted to do, he was in hindsight looked as a good king because he didn’t charge the taxes that his brother did.

So what about Jesus as our king?

I think we have to be honest and say that for many Jesus is regarded as a bad king.

If a king is judged by his power, and how he welds that power, then many would regard Jesus as a bad king.

The other week I was visiting one of our parish who was going through a bad time.

And he was reflecting on another time in his life he was going through a bad time, when his brother died a long and painful death...and his comment was, ‘Jesus, what are you up to. Why are you doing this? How could you let this happen?’

In his eyes, here was a king, a person of power, not using that power to aid his brother, to ease his pain or to heal him.

So why should he follow this king, this king that allows such cruelty to happen?

And that’s a comment I have heard from Christians as well, ‘I don’t know why this is happening? I don’t know what I have done to deserve this?’

Maybe part of the problem is that we have always misunderstood what Jesus meant when he talked about his kingship.

Right from the beginning of Jewish history there was an antagonism about kingship. Samuel, who anointed the first two kings of Israel, detested the idea.

He felt that God should be the ruler of the people, not a king.

But the people wanted a king because everyone else roundabout had a king and their countries seemed to be more stable.

Samuel felt that in reality the king would have power and authority but be insecure, scared that others would take that power away, so they would rule from fear.

And also that the king would feel that other kings might try to invade, so he would sacrifice the youth in battles and wars that had nothing to do with the people’s wellbeing, but the kings own power plays.

And in the books of Kings and the books of Chronicles, in the Old Testament, we see this in play.

Kings sacrificing everyone and anyone just so they stay in power, just so that they have more than anyone else; more power, more status, more land.

The feeling was that if the king was doing well, then the people were doing well.

But more often than not the king was doing well at the cost of the people.

Kings ruled in fear, and ruled with fear.

And the writers of the Old Testament saw that.

They saw how the kings ruled badly, made selfish decisions, and because of that the people ended up in exile, but there was the hope that if God forgave them and they returned home, then a new king would emerge that would have learnt the lessons. He would be a prince of peace, a wonderful councillor.

The only trouble was that when the elite came back from exile their kings were just as bad as the last lot.

It seems that power corrupted, and absolute power corrupted absolutely.

Jesus didn’t come to be that kind of king.

He didn’t come to take land or have all the benefits of power, the palaces and the clothes and the slaves...Jesus came to rule our hearts.

That is why Nicodemus was struggling.

Jesus was demanding obedience, but was not demanding obedience for himself.

Instead Jesus was talking about obedience to a way of life...Jesus’ way of life.

If anything Jesus was living the life of servanthood.

Jesus was living a life of obedience to God the Father; he was being an example for us to follow and saying that with God’s strength we can follow it.

And that is where we are now.

If Jesus is to rule our hearts, then that means obedience.

But then we have to ask ourselves, ‘Why?’

Why should we obey when there is no material benefit for us?

Why should we obey when it doesn’t mean that we are healed from diseases, or that we are protected from trouble when it comes, or that we have more than those that don’t believe?

And this is what it comes down to.

The world is broken.

We have broken it.

When we look at some of our relationships,

when we look at the general state of our lives and the worry and concern in those lives,

when we look at the relationship between religions, between denominations, even between churches of the same denomination

when the look at the wars between people over bits of land,

when we look at the division of resources throughout the world and how much is owned by so few, and how so many have so little,

when we look at the environment and what we are doing to our own ecology...

the world is broken.

That is because we live in a world dominated by fear and hatred and greed and envy and insecurity.

If we follow Jesus, if we follow the path he has set for us, then that life of loving servanthood that transforms.

For God so loved the world...there is a path of love

That he gave his only son...the example for us to follow

That whoever believes in him may not die but have eternal life...if we believe then what we do is eternal, because it changes us, the world and everything.

If we believe then it transforms us.

We no longer live in fear of what we need; we live in gratefulness for what we have been given.

So we don’t see others as competition,

we do not judge ourselves by comparing what we have with what others have.

We can rejoice with those who are doing well, we can weep with those who are struggling.

If we believe it transforms the environment that we live in.

Because our lives are not judged on what we have; not possessions or health or prestige, but only on what we can give to others; our friendship, our encouragement, our help, our guidance.

This all starts with Adam, right at the start of the Bible, who was told by Satan that he could be like God if only he did one thing (in his case a piece of fruit). And we know that is silly.

But we still believe it ourselves.

If only we had that one thing that would make us happy, secure, safe, feel in control...maybe that one thing would be someone to love, maybe a child, maybe a house or a car or a certain amount of money in the bank, maybe a job that gives us purpose, or a retirement that gives us freedom.

And we are looking for that one thing that will give our life meaning, purpose, worth.

Here is the truth...the truth we don’t want to believe.

The truth is that we are never going to be kings or queens of our own destiny.

There is never a moment in our life that at the click of a finger everything...everything...everything... we have can disappear.

Yet no matter how often I say that we still want to believe the lie...that we can somehow control our own destiny, that we are kings and queens of our life and we control ultimately what happens to us.

The more we try to control our world the more our life exhausts us.

Look at Donald Trump...look at everything he has, and yet it is obvious that he is still insecure. No matter how much power he accumulates he is still only one heartbeat away from losing it all.

Look at Elon Musk...look at how much money he has, he has more money that most nation states. And yet he is only one heartbeat away from losing it all.

And yet, and yet, people still chase what they have, thinking that it will give them more security.

We need to realise that we will never be the kings and queens of our own destiny, we will always be servants.

The choice is not if we are in charge of life, the choice is who we will be servants to.

Will we be servants of fear, and let that rule our hearts and dominate our thoughts and actions.

Or will we let the love of God rule our hearts, the prince of peace be our king, to rule us and be obedient to.

Because if we can truly believe in this servant king, then it will transform everything;

our lives, our community, our world.

Let us pray

Heavenly Father

It seems like such a simple statement

For God so loved the world that he gave his only Son, so that whoever should believe in him may not die, but have eternal life.

The world

All of it

The whole thing

The land, the sea, the people, the creatures

The history, the future, the present.

And God sent his Son for that world, our world.

And what a Son; saviour, healer, storyteller, listener, table turner.

the condemned, the punished, the cross carrier.

That all who believed, all who trusted, all who would follow, all who would be obedient;

would touch eternity.

Faith, hope and love...those are the things of eternity.

What would our lives be like if they were full of faith, full of hope, full of love?

But that would need us to change,

to give up our fears and insecurities,

give up our shame and our need to hide our failures,

give up our longing for more than others.

Help us to surrender all those things that hold us back.

Help us to surrender all those things that give us no hope and no security.

May we give up our need to be in control, and trust that you are with us, that we can rely in You.

May we look at the sky and see wonder.

May we look at our family and feel care.

May we look at our neighbour and feel compassion.

May we look at our mistakes and see lessons to be learnt.

May we look at our failures and see the potential for growth.

May we look at our wrongs and see forgiveness given.

May we look in the mirror and see a child of love.

May we have the courage to accept your love, and let that love transform us every day into someone closer to the person you created us to be.

This we ask in Jesus name.

Amen.